Laying the Hardwood floors

     The old kitchen are had a nasty vinyl floor while the rest of the main floor was nice red oak hardwoods. We that means good bye vinyl and hello to stitching in new wood to complete the great room with all hard wood.

     The original hard wood was made from 1 1/2 inch wide boards. While this might have been popular in the 60's and 70's you will have a hard time finding that narrow a board today. Luckily after much searching I found some unfinished 1.5" at Lumber Liquidators. We bought enough to finish off all the floors in the house. Figured we would make the future dinning room hardwood as well.

     With my trusty helper Ben assistance we prep'd the floor for the wood. In order to make it match as best as possible and not have a straight seem where the old floor stopped we had to remove a bunch of the old wood to make staggered edge.

We rented the Floor nailer from Home depot. Fun little nail gun to use. You really have to give it a good wack.

Two full days later we have nicely laid tightly butted hard wood floors ready for sanding and stain

Let their be Recessed Light

     I felt that the original lighting for the main level was lacking. Kristin liked the idea of lots of lamps but, while a great idea I needed a bit more general over head lighting. Recessed lights it would be. I laid them out so that they were in four specific groupings. Two in the living room and two in the kitchen area. This way you could manage them and not have too much light. The Living room area lights were also put on dimmers. Finally CFLs (compact Florescent  lights) are dimmable. We went with 5" cans in the living room and 4" in the kitchen. The 6" lights just looked to big for the room.

The Kitchen Lights

The Kitchen was grouped with three over the cabinets and three over the soon to be built island

The Living room lights

Ben and I spent many a long hour in the attic wiring all of these things. In the end definitely worth the effort.

A painted Foyer with new Light fixture

Slow but steadily the house is getting covered in paint. Kristin was able to knock out the Foyer this past weekend. She ended up using the same color as the upstairs hallway. I think it look great. It will look even better once I get the crown molding back up.

A Little crown molding and it will be as good as new

The new Light Fixture

More New Appliances

With the refridgerator out of the way it was time to hunt out our new stove and dishwasher.

     For years I have wanted a gas range and finally I am going to get one. After looking around and reading every review there was I decided on the GE Cafe Dual fuel range. Since the stove was going into the island I made it a slide in.

     After talking with the guys at HH Gregg fine lines he convinced me to buy it through them. They gave me a great price on the unit. We figure we might as well get the dishwasher from them as well.

    The dishwasher we looked up on consumer reports. We really liked the Bosch dishwashers but Kristin and I couldn't agree on which one. So we made a total switch and compromised with this really nice fully feature Samsung DMT800RHS Stainless model. It wasn't rated in consumer reports but it had all the features we wanted and the look Kristin loved.

     Appliance shopping is complete. Now we just have to finish the house to have a place to put them in .

Painting the upstairs

     With the popcorn removed from all the ceilings upstairs the rooms were ready for some much needed color. Kristin came up with a very nice color scheme for the upstairs. I believe she based it on a Tuscan color palette. Kristin and my Mother spent the part of the week and the weekend priming and painting the ceilings. Flat non popcorn white never looked so good. 

The finished painted product

Master Bedroom

Gavin's Room

Guest Room

Office / Other bedroom

Kitchen Demo Complete. Yippy!!!

So with the beam in the attic we are full steam ahead with taking the last wall down and completing the kitchen demo.

And the last wall comes down.

The Beam

     I order to keep us on some kind of schedule and be able to get back to renovating this weekend I was going to have to find my contractors quickly. Thankfully our real estate agent knew a good engineering firm and he was able to come out to look at the roof on Wednesday. The contractor was a recommend from another contractor that I was using on our town house uptown and he could make Wednesday as well. Well win win for me. Lets get this thing moving.

     After the engineer and the contractor met at the house it was decided that a 22ft long 18" high 4" thick LVL (laminated Vinyl Lumber) beam was needed to support the roof load. This beam would weigh every bit of 600lbs. Good thing I got the contractor. I didn't really think my back would have been up to this task.

    The Beam was delivered on Thursday 

Work began on Friday. Hopefully this will take just the one day and will not interfere with our progress this weekend.

This is one heavy beam!!!!

Beam Transport

Getting the beam in the Attic

All done ;)

They were able to get the beam in place and secured in one day. That means all lights are green for more Renovation on the weekend!!!

Removing old attic Insulation

     Once we got up into the attic I realized that the insulation that was in there was old and insufficant. So we decided that we might as well start fresh since we had the attic open and the ability to do so. As we had down time since the attic beam needed to be put in before we could do anything else. If I had known how much work this was going to be I would never have done this but once you start................

Got to love the bunny suit

Don't I look like I am having fun

This was by far the nastiest, dirtiest tiring job of the demo process. It ended up taking us 6 hours to get it all out bagged and the attic vacuumed up. That energy bill better be worth it ;)

Is it Load Bearing or Not?!?!?

How do you tell if a wall is Load bearing? 


     All walls tend to look the same. A cleverly placed bearing wall can be as dangerous as a stealth bomber. Remove one without adequate re-support and all sorts of things may drop down on you.  Bearing walls act as a structural element within your house. They carry and transfer a load from one point to another. In a properly designed home, the loads eventually get transmitted to a foundation. Knowing this, you can work up and locate your bearing walls. But beware, some loads are very well hidden and not all bearing walls are found in the middle of a structure. 


     The exterior walls on houses that support the roof are primary bearing walls. Not all exterior walls are bearing walls though. There are many houses where just the front and back walls are bearing walls. Frequently interior walls that run perpendicular to the run of the floor joists above and below are candidates for bearing walls. But there are many a wall such as this in a home that are not bearing any weight whatsoever. If you discover a wall or a beam directly below this wall or parallel with the wall within a short distance, then the suspect wall may be a bearing wall. Bearing walls are not always stacked one on top of another. This is why detection and identification is not an exact science.


     So the first wall we took down ran parallel to the ceiling joist and was obviously not load bearing. That left us with one final wall to come down. This last wall ran down the center of the area under the middle of the roof. There was nothing about it other than the roof. Se really it now comes down to the method of construction of the roof itself. If I have a truss roof then this wall is most likely good to go. If I have a stick constructed roof we are in trouble and the wall is most likely load bearing. The only way to tell is to open up the ceiling and get up in the attic space.

Hmm is it Load bearing or not?????

     After getting into the attic it was be pretty obvious that the roof was stick construction.

Unfortunately this is what a Stick construction Roof Looks like

 The ceiling joist did even go all the way across the span of the room. They were connected to each other directly over the wall that needed to come down. 

   Final diagnosis is that we have a load bearing wall and now my easy Kitchen demo has drastically moved up in the difficult scale. A support beam will have to be placed in the attic. This beam will have to be spec'd by a professional Structural Engineer and put in place by a professional. I am not going to attempt this one on my own. Little outside of my skill level. It is always nice to have some one else to blame if the ceiling falls in.


   So time to find my help.

Kitchen Demolition

Demolition is one of the best parts of a remodel. When else can you take a sledgehammer and crow bar to your house? There is something strangely therapeutic about demolition. 

Originally I thought it would be a great idea to have Habitat for Humanity come and take the Cabinets. They can take them down and no mess or disposal for me. It would seem that these cabinets weren't even good enough for them. That left it time to get mid-evil  on some cabinets.

Cabinets removed -- Check

In order to create the new kitchen that we want a lot of work is going to have to take place inside the walls. Bye Bye Dry wall!!!

Dry wall gone -- Check

The kitchen in its original form was a meager 10 x 10 footer. The new kitchen will be much bigger ( 11 x 22). In order for this expansion  a few walls needed to come down. We started on the wall between the Kitchen and the dining room as we knew that wall was not load bearing (was parallel to the ceiling joists)

One Wall Down -- Check

Gary and his trusty crowbar. Isn't Demolition fun ;)

 This is the final result at the conclusion of week one. I think we got a good bit done. Just one wall left to go.

"POPCORN" Ceiling Removal

           Popcorn ceiling are nasty ugly stuff. There are even websites dedicated to there demise:

- http://www.popcornforum.com/

- www.facebook.com/pages/I-Hate-popcorn-ceiling/116869584654

*****  How to remove Popcorn Ceilings ******

I'm going to warn you upfront that it is not easy to get rid of the popcorn. It takes strength, stamina, tireless arms and neck and a few days to recuperate afterwards. There are no shortcuts, nor is there any magic solution to make the popcorn fall off the ceiling on its own accord.

Supplies you'll needA sturdy ladder
Trowel or scraper (the wider the better, we use 12" taping knives)
A big bottle of hot water (you can add vinegar if you like we didn't)

A ventilator and Jumpsuit
Sandpaper
A couple of rolls of plastic sheeting to cover the floors and lower walls
1 Industrial sized vacuum cleaner (just kidding, but not really)

Once you have all this together you will look like this and are ready to begin.

Before you get started roll out enough plastic sheeting to cover up any doors and windows. Staple it, tape it or glue it, whatever works for you. Over the doors and windows so the room is sealed off. Make sure the plastic is longer than the doors so you can weigh it down at the bottom with bricks (or something else that's heavy). Regardless you will still have dust all over the rest of your house anyway, but it does help reduce it some.

After you seal off your room, mix up a spray bottle of vinegar water and put your mask on. Standing on the ladder (or not) spray a large section of your popcorn ceiling. You don't want it to be wet enough to rain on or drip on you but you do want it good and wet.

If you have at any point painted the popcorn on your ceiling then using water will not work for you. That's what you get for sealing it to the ceiling with paint.

You'll need to get moving fast. Use your trowel to scrape away the popcorn ceiling. When it dries it gets harder to scrape. If you are one of the lucky ones and don't have very much joint compound beneath the popcorn, the water mixture should cause it to begin to bubble and fall from the ceiling in small chunks. 

Once you have all the popcorn removed you'll need to go over any places that aren't smooth with sandpaper. Sand down any joint compound that is noticeably thick. Use putty to fill in any gouges or dents in wallboard. Primer and Paint.

Weekend 1 The Plan

We have split up into three teams. My mother and Kristin are team 1 responsible for Pop Corn ceiling removal and upstairs beautification. Team two, Dad and I are the demolition team and we are starting in the kitchen. Team three are Oscar and Gavin and they are mainly running around and finding bugs.



Team Oscar



The Troops

Our new refrigerator showed up this weekend. Yippy now we have a place for all our beverages and snacks during the renovation. Hope we don't do any damage.

Dad enjoying a frosty Beverage from the new Fridge

Let the Fun Begin

     Lucky for Kristin and I, my parents annual trip south to visit us and Gavin just happen to occur at the start of our renovation. I did warn them when we would be starting. I think they were happy to help. The first few days after closing were spent preparing the house for the weekend renovation kickoff. This was the first of many trips to both Lowes and Home Depot. We picked up roles of red rosin paper and 6 mil plastic to protect the floors as well as all the materials for demolition and popcorn ceiling removal.

A bunch of $5 to $10 items sure can add up in a hurry.

     Mom and Dad prepared all the floors for us during the week. That was so very nice of them.